


Happiness is Objective

by hbub1201



Series: Fight for Nassau [2]
Category: Black Sails
Genre: Angst, Eventual Honesty, M/M, Pining
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-14
Updated: 2016-03-14
Packaged: 2018-05-26 17:03:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,187
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6248266
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hbub1201/pseuds/hbub1201
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Just a little thing, another angle on what could possibly happen. I have lots of ideas and hopes and dreads about what Billy does next, this is what follows from one of my ideas but I hate starting at the beginning because I like to know the end first so I wrote this and had to post it before I lost my nerve. </p><p>So this is set after the events of Nassau have been resolved, in as much as they will ever be resolved I suppose.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Happiness is Objective

Billy had been back with the Walrus crew for a couple of hours, exhausted and relieved, he'd made his way through his brothers, everyone patting each other on the back for a battle well fought. A farewell to those lost had been sang over shared ale and now Billy was making his way along winding corridors to the one man who hasn't so much as looked at him since his return.

"Captain," he said boldly upon entering the darkened room. 

"Billy," was the older mans clipped reply.

"Is there nothing we should discuss?"

"Should there be?"

"Look," Billy advanced slightly, raising an arm in frustration, "I know getting myself arrested was not part of the original plan, Vane being hung was a blow to our cause on its own without me swinging next to him." If the Captain flinched at his words Billy didn't notice it. "But they'd moved up his execution and I needed to do something to get everyone's attention in one place."

"And I hear you managed it spectacularly." 

There was no emotion in his voice, no relief or congratulations, no trace of pride or gratitude. Billy didn't know what he expecting to return to but this was not it, the Captain had barely raised his eyes from his desk since the bosun had walked in.

"Well we're both still whole." Billy sniped back, irationally angry that the other man was giving him no credit for getting Vane out alive, not to mention bringing a substancial amount of pirates back to fight by their side. The more angry he got, the more that anger shifted to himself for caring in the first place.

Flint looked up then, stilling his hand where it stretched to dip his quil in ink. He had one eyebrow raised in question as he stared, blank faced, into the aggravated eyes of the younger man in front of him, almost radiating anger as he shuffled from foot to foot.

"Silver has brought me up to speed on what happened your end," Billy continued when the Captain stayed silent and staring. "Joji, filled me in on who we lost, I just thought you might have something to add about what comes next?"

"We continue on the path we have put ourselves on."

Billy nodded silently, rolling in his eyes at himself for expecting anything more from the man in front of him, there was only one man who could reach him anymore and Billy was not him. Without another word the bosun spun on his heel and started to leave the other man to his solutitude.

Flint breathed for a few seconds, closed his eyes to concentrate on the question swirling around his head, pondering how good of an idea it was to broach it now, to Billy of all people. "When were you last happy?" He half asked boldly, his mask in place to disguise the panic underneath. "Truely happy I mean."

Flint always saw Billy as a man who was thrown from one bad situation to another, none of it by his own hand, but who somehow managed to fight on and overcome. While Flint despaired at the end of all things, Billy always seemed to be looking to what came next, if anyone could see the brightness ahead, surely it was Billy.

"Our life," Billy replied all but softly, turning only enough angle his upper body towards his Captain. "Such as it is, you take the small moments of happiness as you can get them."

Flint looked at him then, like he was searching for answers Billy was fairly certain he didn't know how to give.

"Surviving a battle," Billy expanded carefully. "Your brothers left standing beside you."

"Is that not more relief than happiness?" The Captain argued back, not angry or snide, just cautious.

"Perhaps that is all there is now. Happiness, I've found in my limited experience of it, comes first from other people. At a time like this people seem as reluctant to give it as they are to accept it." Billy looked to the floor now, knowing that if he looked into Flint's eyes he would see his own failure to give the man the answer he wanted. But this was the only answer Billy had. 

He'd laughed plenty in his life, he'd been merry and alive and srrounded by people he'd die to protect. Yet he had no basis for true happiness, the sort he knew the older man was talking about now. He'd been torn from his family at such a young age, endured years of capture wherein he believed he'd never know happiness again. Then he was 'rescued' by pirates and hurled into one battle after another with no promise of anything different ever again.

Billy had no qualms with his life. He'd chosen to stay with Flint and Gates, he'd chosen to remain a pirate and he'd never regretted that choice in all of these years fighting unknown battles for an, at times, unstable Captain. But perhaps Flint was right, perhaps what he now associated with happiness really was just relief. 

"Hmm," The Captain mumbled, finally releasing the quil from his palm and running one hand down his face.

"Why do you ask?" Billy asked carefully.

Flint exhaled loudly before shaking off whatever emotion was threatening to show itself. Billy could see the exact moment the mask fell back onto his Captains face. "Just curious, I suppose." He spoke with a forced sort of boredom that had Billy regretting not just walking away the moment he'd had a chance. He should just walk away now, he wasn't the one with whom the Captain needed to be having this conversation, perhaps that, then, is why he stayed. 

"And you?" The bosun asked boldly, putting up his own walls of uncaring.

Flint laughed bitterly at that. "My last moment of true happiness was a fleeting second amidst a world of chaos.

In all honesty Billy was surprised he'd even got that much out of the other man. He nodded again to himself, wondering whether to push further or leave when the decision was taken from him as Flint spoke again.

"But it was real," he muttered quietly, almost resentful of it even as he said the words. "And I've since clung to moment more than even I had realised."

Billy's eyes narrowed as he looked at Flint, the other man seemingly as surprised as he was that the words had escaped him. Yet there was a message there, one that Billy didn't know if he was reading right, almost as if the Captain was trying to give him hope for more than just relief.

"Do I get to ask what this moment was?" Billy asked then, not pushing, just genuinely curious.

"You can ask." Flint remarked back, mouth turned up at the corners in the remnants of a smile.

Billy just snorted, smiling himself but saying nothing in the fear of ruining whatever stalemate they'd reached.

Eventually Flint broke the silence again as he ran both hands through barely their hair as he all but growled out his next words.

"All this fighting and I find strength in an insignifcant moment of elation."

Billy froze then, suddenly feeling out of his depth. This didn't seem to be about Billy anymore, was Flint looking to him for reassurance. The bosun hated himself for it but in that moment all he could think of was 'where the hell is Silver?'

"Then it wasn't insignificant." Was what Billy finally managed to say back.

Flint snapped his head to look at the taller man, as if having forgotten he was even their, Billy felt a stab of hurt before Flint's expression softened and his eyebrows raised thoughtfully.

"Perhaps not to me," the Captain muttered back softly.

Billy breathed again, knowing he hadn't yet pushed too far, he wasn't yet completely unwelcome.

"And the others involved?" He asked back, "Mrs Barlow perhaps."

Flint gritted his teeth at the mention of her and a part of Billy almost wanted him to snap, to yell and throw fists, to show some sort of emotion, to finally get it out. But he didn't. Instead the Captain inhaled and closed his eyes for a moment as his memories of a woman he'd held so dear washed over him, caring nothing for who was there to see it.

"She was a good woman," he said, either to Billy or to himself, neither were sure. "Better than I deserved. If there was any justice in this world then perhaps my happiness should have been tied to hers."

"It seemed like it was," Billy commented cautiously, "After her loss you ceased to exist, Captain."

Again, Flint didn't blow up at this and Billy found himself somewhat resentfuly of the other mans unwillingness to show any real emotions around him. It was irrational and childish, that he was aware of, but he'd been by the mans side for so long now that he couldn't help but feel like he deserved some sort trust in return.

"Her death destroyed me," the Captain returned honestly, "For a lot of reason, many of which were beyond just her or me."

Billy hummed in understanding. "The past, of which you cannot speak." 

Flint barely shrugged and offered up no more words so Billy inhaled again accepted this little insight into his Captain was now over.

"Perhaps, then, it is advisable to look, instead, to the future?"

Flint barely even acknowledged he'd heard the words so Billy once again turned to the door and made his way of the, suddenly constricting, dark room.

"Perhaps," he said again, hand on the door handle, "If your moment of happiness didn't come from Mrs Barlow then you will be able to find it again. All is not lost after all." And with that Billy was gone.

 

-X-

 

"Would it be an overstep to ask how you were holding up?" Silver asked easily as he entered Flint's chamber.

"Is there a reason I shouldn't be holding up OK?" The Captain asked back sarcastically, but he did stop his writing upon Silvers entry and look straight into the other mans eyes so the quartermaster was going to take that as a positive sign.

"Of course not," Silver proclaimed, his usual chipper self, he noticed the Captain smirk at his enthusiasm and took that as another win. "You are in the midst of fulfilling your greatest ambition."

Flint nodded as his face relaxed into a somewhat easier smile. "And yet you're concerned?"

"Well," Silver shrugged, his arms raised innocently, "You haven't been fully rational of late."

The joke was there but so was the truth. Flint has been all but suicidal back in that cage, on that Island. Then again, when he'd faced off Blackbeard and tried to run in after Vane. Silver was concerned, and he knew the Flint knew it too, and yet he hadn't been kicked out yet.

Flint just nodded, not denying the claim, but not confirming it either, he looked back to his log and Silver knew he had to proceed before his Captains attention was lost.

"So," he said, possibly a tad too loud in the small space between them. "Are you?" He asked carefully. "OK?" He expanded.

"I'm contemplating happiness," Flint scoffed humourously.

"Oh," the quatermaster breathed, "I see," he muttered thoughtfully. "Nothing too philosophical then?" He joked back, rewarded for his efforts when Flint managed a small but genuine laugh.

"May I?" Silver requested, steping forward and gesturing to the seat opposite from Flint.

Flint waved his hand yes, knowing full well that the quartermaster was not just asking for the seat.

"I find," Silver huffed as he dropped inelegantly into the chair, "happiness, in a time such as this, comes easier when looking forward to what comes next."

"How optimistic." The Captain rebuffed, but it was obvious to Silver he was still listening.

"Well what else is there?" The quartermaster continued merrily. "We are surrounded by death and mayhem, how is it possible to find happiness in that?"

Flint's face dropped then and Silver knew that this conversation was about more than what it appeared, he also knew the Captain was holding back something important. Before he could ask, though, the Captain steered them back to a more light hearted approach.

"I could name a few of the men who seem to love death and mayhem," he scoffed.

"Yet neither you nor I are in that list." Silver said back, voice controlled to a hppy mix of seriousness and humour.

"Was it not a few short weeks ago that you were telling me how good the darkness felt?" The Captain returned quickly, his own voice losing some of the light edge it held moments before.

"It's empowering," Silver agreed honestly, "I admit it felt good to be that strong. But it was not joyful, not happy. I assume it is the latter which you seek."

Flint looked at him coldly then, just for a second, as if refusing to admit he sought anything but war. As if admitting to wanting peace was a weakness he could not afford. Silver considers back tracking, steering them back to safer topics of discussion, but in the end it is Flint who speaks next, ignoring the quartermasters last remark.

"So, you believe that joy and happiness cannot exist"

Silver exhaled and silently kicked himself for letting this get so deep, so important. The Captain wasn't smiling anymore, his next words mattered, he just hoped he said the right thing. 

"Oh it exists," he affirmed assuredly. "For some it is in battle, for others it exists in order. But for men like you and me it is in the dream of what comes next."

"Are we so alike," the Captain asked back, not affended or angry.

"Do you disagree?" The quatermaster returned, an answer in itself and a surety in his belief that surprised him as much as it calmed him. Since when was being like Flint a matter of proud of John Silver?

"Do I believe that we can not experience joy?" Flint asked back, deliberately avoiding the question Silver hadn't realised he was so desperate for an answer to.

Frustration threatened to break through as Silver inhaled and thought bout what to say next.

"I'm not saying we can't find, or experience, things day to day that can bring us hope. Snippets of the good things to come," he argued carefully, watching the other man closely in order to judge his reactions.

"And you have such hope?" Flint asked then, this question seeming more important than any of the others.

"Yes," Silver affirmed determinedly. "I do, now more so than I can ever remember."

Flint snorted and smirked again, "You find hope in the strangest of places."

Silver nodded silently, not finding any humoure in it, "Yes, I suppose I do. Do you not?"

Flint looked back to his logs and Silver had to fight not to slump in his chair. He waited for what seemed like an eternity before he accepted that the Captain wasn't going to say anything further.

"May I ask what brought this contemplation on?" He asked, changing tact slightly but really asking the same question.

Flint just shrugged again and muttered a bored sounding, "Oh, just something and nothing."

"Should I be worried?" Silver asked seriously.

"Didn't this particular conversation start because you already are?"

Silver inhaled and bowed his head, desperate in a way he hadn't thought he'd ever be in regards to his Captain. 

"Then I suppose my question should have been, can I help?" He was all but laying himself bare and he was alarmingly alright with it.

For his part, Flint looked to be considering it for a few moments, a few moments in which Silver felt optimistic all over again, before the stoic facade appeared back on his Captains face and Flint proclaimed that "No, Mr Silver, there is nothing to fix."

"I'm not suggesting I can fix you Captain," he said quickly, to which Flint shot his head up to look into the quartermasters eyes. "Or indeed that you need fixing at all," he ammended calmly, to which the Captain turned his eyes away and Silver had to fight himself not to exhale with relief. "I'm just saying that perhaps I can be of some help?"

The two sat in silence then. Long drawn out moments with no soundtrack to keep either man occupied. Even the outside world seemed dulled as Silver watched his Captain watch him right back. Size him up and analyze his motives. He watched as Flint fought with himself over whether or not he could lay his trust in him or whether he should just put his walls back up and say nothing. Silver never got to find out his conclusion though, as a knock on the door broke whatever fragile balance the two men were clinging to.

"Sorry to interrupt," Madi said apologetically as she entered the room slowly. She turned her gaze fro Captain to quartermaster. "Dr Howell would like to see you, take a look at your leg after the excitement of the day."

Silver looked back to Flint, undecided as to whether he should leave now and give the Captain a chance to relax and come to his own decision, or whether he should stay and push more at the opening he's been giving now and may not get again.

Madi all but coughed to regain his attention. "Um, I think time is of the essence, he's looking forward to experiencing the pleasures of the brothel so I believe he would prefer to see to your leg sooner rather than later."

Silver, nodded angrily as he looked up into the warm eyes of the woman who'd so easily become so important to him, angry at himself for being annoyed at her interruption. "i'll be right there," he assured kindly.

"It's OK," Flint piped up, looking between Silver and Madi with an ease that seemingly dismissed all that had preceeded it. "We're finished here."

Silver narrowed his eyes at the act and focused all of his energy into the stare he layed on his Captain. "For now?" He asked blankly, "Or permanently?" He finished, his own mask firmly in place again.

Flint just looked at him with stone eyes, as if to suggest it was obvious, so Silver fought a smile in return and turned to follow a, still apologetic, Madi out of the room.

-x-

Flint stood leaning in the doorway, his chest constricted as he watched the other man work. He hadn't been noticed yet so he was able to just watch and think and allow himself to feel all of the shit he can't let anyone see. After their conversation that afternoon he'd struggled to get the other man out of his head, not that this was a new thing but it was becoming increasingly distracting and he needed to find a way to get a handle on himself or he would end up doing something stupid like allowing himself to trust him with the truth. A problem shared is a problem halved and all that.

But he couldn't let that be a possibility. Happiness gained is happiness lost and he can't go through that loss again.

The world around him and unaware man in the room beyond the doorway bustled away with no thought to anything other than progression and Flint wanted a moment for it to stop. A moment like he'd experienced just once before, where everything else had faded away and he'd allowed himself to just be and feel and love.

But like all other moments that one, too, had passed, just as this one must. He stood tall and shook himself calm, pushing away from the doorway and escaping into the night unseen and unheard, part of him happy to sneak away unnoticed, but another part hugely dissappointed.

 

-X-

 

Another dream struck him in his few whistful moments of sleep that evening. He'd found a secluded area for himself and finally allowed his mind to shut off and relax. He slept and he dreamt and he lived a life outside of Nassau and pirates and England.

Miranda was there, as always, and she led him to a safe place, more promises of how he was not alone pulling him to follow her until she finally stopped in a clearing and let go of his hand. Surprisingly he found he didn't miss it, the pressure of her palm in his, for the first time since the loss of her he didn't pine for her touch..

It wasn't even Thomas he found a longing for within the sanctity of his mind, in fact there was nothing of the life he'd left behind in England. Nothing of James McGraw or his love of the Barlows.

His dream sent him to the future, to a world with a war fought behind him and a peace stretched in front. He knew who he wanted that life with.

When he woke he was distraught. He knew who he wanted that life with just as he knew he could never have it. Just as he knew it was best to stay as far away from it as was physically possible.

 

-X-

 

Flint coughed gently in the corner of the room.

"Jesus Christ!" Billy yelled, hand raising to clutch at his chest. "You scared the shit out of me, how long have you been bloody standing there?"

"I wasn't aware I was sneaking," the older man smirked, but it was forced and the humour was lacking all bite.

"Are you OK?" Billy asked, biting back a retort when he saw the stern look on his Captain's face.

"I have been asked that alot today." Flinted scoffed, turning to walk further into the room. 

Billy had been in the process of sorting through the mess of papers left behing Rogers and his men, looking for anything that could prove useful in keeping them from coming back. As one of only three men who could read, and with Silver working down in the bowls of the tavern, stressing about needing some peace for a goddamn minute, and the Captain awol until now, Billy had been left with the tedious task decifering Englands politics.

"Well then, obvously it is us who have asked that are in the wrong," the bosun remarked, glad of the distraction but turning back to his papers never the less.

"Everyone's wrong but me," Flint snorted back, causing Billy to force a patronising smile before looking back to the papers.

Silence descended on the men, Billy expected the Captain to sit at the other side of the desk, to pick through the paperwork as well, to probably try to be subtly in going back over the ones Billy had already disregarded in the belief that the younger man would probably have missed something. But Flint did nothing, he just stood in his spot in the middle of the room, seemingly observing everything and nothing all at once. Billy had no idea why he was even here but he was acutely aware of how alert the other man's presence made him feel.

Eventually the silence became suffocating, to Billy at least, and so he inhaled and brushed off as much of his unexplained anger as he could and turned to face the shorter man. Whatever anger or hatred was between them, he had finally accepted that it wasn't on his side and he knew the Captain needed something to happen before he completely lost himself.

"You were telling me earlier," he spoke boldly, uncaring ow of pushing too far, already knowing it didn't actually matter anyway. "About a single moment that made you happy. Mrs Barlow or not, I meant what I said, perhaps you should revisit it."

The bosun was expecting a lot of different things. He half expected anger, to be told to mind his own business, to be warned not to interfere. He also expected sarcasm, a joke to be made of the whole thing, or just to be completely ignored and disregarded. What he didn't expect was for the Captain's face to fall further, for him to pale to the point of despair almost, a shudder fighting to creep over both of them at the sudden tension rolling off the older man.

"I never want to experience that again." Flint declared angrily, knowing his reaction had exposed too much for him to be able to avoid an answer of some sort.

Billy tensed too, eyebrows creasing in frustration, or was it second hand despair? "You'd deprive yourself of it?" He asked a tad too aggressively, not even pretending to understand the inner workings of his Captain.

"Gladly," Flint all but yelled back. He was breathing heavily and he knew he must have looked psychotic but he couldn't help the tidal wave of emotion that incident awoke in him.

Billy bit his tongue to keep from fighting back, from calling the other man an idiot and an ass and god damn fool. His expressin remained hard and it took minutes of silent glaring on both sides before something within Flint snapped and his face dropped all anger and all that was left was the poorly concealed despair.

"The moment itself may well have been the happiest in memory," he said out loud, fighting internally with himself as to why he was saying anything at all. A part of him wanted to just turn and leave, to go and sleep and find that place within him he could just exist, happiness in the real world be damned. But for the first time in a long time he felt too weak, he needed to get say this to someone before he lost all hope of finding his way of the despair eating at his insides.

"But those moments that preceeded it," he growled, covering fear with anger and hurt with agression, "They were the worst. I could not survive them again."

Billy's eyes turned instantly from anger to shock to sympathy. He didn't know what to say, what the Captain needed to hear but he wished he could take all of that hurt from the other mans shoulders because no man deserved that much pain.

"You always survive." Billy replied honestly, kicking himself for his attempt at levity when it didn't elicit so much as a scoff of a laugh from the other man.

Flint had barely even heard him, didn't think he'd have heard anything from the bosun, the battle in his head now roaring so loud. He paced the room, reliving the events that he'd tried to hard to block from him mind.

"I barely survived it the first time," he growled without meaning to, doing all he could to forget that Billy was in the room, knowing that was the only way he'd be able to say all that he needed to whilst still hating himself for needing to say it.

"The things I did," he growled, knowing this was a jigsaw that Billy would not be able to put together. His chest was rising and falling with every step and his fists were clenched so tight he could feel his nails digging sharply into his palms. "Everything was where it should have been, finally we had a plan, a real solution. However far fetched it seemed, it was a way to end it all and all I felt was numb. Miranda was there and I should have loved her but all I felt was loss. Then Silver came along," he growled, angrier at these last few words than he'd been about any of the story so far and in that second Billy knew that this was it. This was the happiness he'd been talking about because nothing made men like Flint angrier than showing weakness through happiness.

In that moment Billy really hated John Silver.

Flint stood still, breathing rapid as his eyes remained glue to the floor, unwilling to look at Billy now but unable to stop his words. "Then Silver told me something that I'd not dared hope for and so I couldn't believe it, didn't want to hear it but couldn't escape it."

Flint closed his eyes at the memory and foolishly hoped that Billy wasn't looking at him now, not seeing this emotion, this unconcious battle to keep his emotions in check, a battle Billy would know he was losing. But Billy wasn't looking, too focused on staring at the mirage of words spread infront of him, not wanting to hear about Flint's happiness with another, but not selfish enough to ask him to stop talking, not now he was finally letting it all out. A small part of Billy would always feel some semblance of pride that no matter what it would always be him that Flint told first. Even thought a smarter part of him knew it was more about time and place than about him specifically.

"I followed him," Flint said, quietly, no longer wanting Billy to hear, "Across a beach full of men looking to me for answers, just waiting to be proven right, to be told it was all lies, some joke, waiting for the loss to hit me again, not knowing how I'd survive it another time, who I'd kill this time with my grief."

Flint raised his head cautiously, both relieved and angry to see that Billy wasn't looking at him, focused as he was on his documents and charts. He was both spurred on by the thought that his confession meant so little to the other man, and destraught by it He carried on only because he couldn't do anything else. He kept his head raised, both hoping and not that Billy would look at him.

"Then he lead me to a tent, and as I stood at the side looking in, at men who'd all experienced the same loss, at men who'd blamed me for it, who'd mutineed because of it, and who'd do it again in a heartbeat... All I saw was you."

Billy's head shot up at this, he turned wide-eyed to Flint, who didn't take the words back or hide them behind some sarcastic comment, his Captain, who was looking at him like his reaction was the only thing that mattered in the world.

"The rest of the world fell away," The Captain continued, not moving close but also not drifting further away. "Because you were real and standing in front of me like you'd never left. I couldn't have stopped myself from touching you if I tried because in that moment I knew if it could have been anyone standing in front of me in that tent, past or future, dead or alive, it would have been you, the rest of the world ceased to exist because I had been granted a miracle and I needed to hold onto it."

Billy stood slowly but the Captain took a step back so the bosun halted any attempt at an advance, hesitant to even speak in case it had the same affect.

"It was only a moment, before the world caught up and took over and we were propelled back into shit but it was important."

"Captain..."

"I never want to feel that happiness again because I never want to feel that loss."

Billy's heavy breathing matched his Captain's now, both fighting for composure even though the other was not looking for weakness in the other, far too preoccupied with covering up the weakness in themselves.

"I'm right here," Billy whispered, not nowing if it was a statement or a plea.

"You were arrested!" Flint shouted then, angry again, a refreshing emotion after all the vulnerability.

Billy took a step back at the sudden change but the pieces of the pzzle were finally slotting into place.

"Christ Billy, you were going to hang right next to Vane and as if that wasn't bad enough, Joji comes back and tells me not to intervene because you'd planned it that way." Flint's pacing resumed as he welcomed back the anger that had enveloped him when he'd first found out about Billy's plan.

"It was all I could do," Billy protested weakly, mind still caught short, trying to process all that he'd just heard.

"You could have done nothing." Flint demanded back, "Like you'd instructed me to do."

Billy saw the anger in that statement, the anger in having listened to him. "He would have died!" The bosun shouted back defensively.

"But you wouldn't have!"

"I didn't!" Billy shouted back, finally taking a step toward Flint, the Captain not withdrawing this time. Instead he used the anger pulsing within him to drive him forward a step of his own. "Neither of us did, the plan worked!"

"It was an unnecessary risk!" Flint roared, the distance between them closed enough now that Billy could feel the words as they rushed through him.

Billy calmed at that, seeing the desperation Flint's anger was masking. "Is that why you wouldn't speak to me?" He asked bitterly, "Wouldn't so much as look at me when I returned?"

Flint stood his ground bt didn't respond, just snarled and stared Billy down. "Is that what started all this shit about happiness?" Billy asked, voice soft now, pleading almost. "You thought I'd be lost again and upon finding out I'd survived, you were reminded of the last time I'd returned from the dead."

"Don't..." Flint demanded, not expressing what it was he was asking Billy not to do. Voice still angry but his own desperation now seeping through, Billy took another step forward and once again the Captain refrained from stepping back, the effort more obvious this time though so Billy stopped his advance.

"What happens next?" He asked, mirroring his question from earlier in the afternoon but no longer referring to the war with England.

"Nothing," the Captain says, almost apologetically.

Billy's anger spikes at this and the taller man bristles. "You would deprive us both then?" He accused menacingly.

Flint's eyebrows shot up his forehead as the implication hit him. He searched the other man's face as Billy tried desperately to say everything with a single look.

"Billy," Flint growled, leaning away as if he was finally retreating from the taller man.

Billy surged forward again and had to stop himself from reaching out to grab Flint's arm to halt his retreat. Thankfully the Captain stopped and turned back to look his bosun in the eye.

"Happiness is in the small moments," the towering man whispered. "Suviving a battle," he repeated, "Your brothers left standing beside you," a pause as he collected his racing thoughts. "Your Captain grabbing your hand as you fell, even though he couldn't possibly keep hold of it."

Flint closed his eyes at the memory, pain etched in his features that had Billy moving swiftly forward even though that moment had meant so much to him. "Him listening to you even though your thought's contradicted his own. Him trusting you with something important even though he whole being screams against it."

Billy dropped his hands to his sides, desperately trying not to deflate at Flint's lack of movement, at him not dropping the stoic expression he wore like a wall across his face.

"Him telling you things he didn't want anyone to know. Telling you things you'd hoped to hear but never thought you would."

Flint did soften then, not much but enough to raise Billy's eyes back to his.

"Happiness is fleeting Billy," Flint argued solemnly.

"People are not fleeting," Billy said sternly, looking straight into his Captains eyes with a certaintly that he'd never felt more than he did now. He hoped the other man would understand, would know what he was asking for, what he was offering in return.

"I was here earlier," the Captain said instead, looking remorseful as Billy sagged at the change of subject. "You didn't notice me then either."

"I was busy," Billy defended, averting his eyes so Flint couldn't see the hurt there. He turned back to face the table before he felt a heat on his arm that sent bolts of heat through his entire being.

"Never," Flint said, suddenly out of breath and stern, obviously feeling the heat too if the flush on his neck was anything to go by. "Never," he whispered again, getting closer so Billy could still hear, "Be too busy to mind your back." He growled ferociously before surging forward and pressing his lips against Billy's already parted mouth.

The kiss was hard and fast and left both men panting with pent up desire. They pulled eachother impossibly closer as hands explored backs and necks and dug into barely their hair, clinging to skin and clothes and blinding them both with a passion neither knew to expect. "I cannot lose you again," Flint breathed between kissing, managing to sound angry even when breathless. Billy made promises back to him as he kissed him harder, both surrendering to the fact that now there was no going back. Now there was no giving this up.


End file.
